By JALAL BWAITEL, Related Press
BETHLEHEM, West Financial institution (AP) — Bethlehem marked one other somber Christmas Eve on Tuesday within the conventional birthplace of Jesus beneath the shadow of conflict in Gaza.
The joy and cheer that usually descends on the Palestinian city within the occupied West Financial institution on Christmas have been nowhere to be discovered: The festive lights and large tree that usually embellish Manger Sq. have been lacking, and as have been the throngs of overseas vacationers that often fill the sq..
Palestinian scouts marched silently by the streets, a departure from their traditional raucous brass marching band. Some carried an indication that learn, “We want life, not death.”
Palestinian safety forces, in the meantime, organized boundaries close to the Nativity Church, constructed atop the spot the place Jesus is believed to have been born, and a employee cleared rubbish bins.
“Always the message of Bethlehem is a message of peace and hope,” stated Mayor Anton Salman. “And these days, we are also sending our message to the world: peace and hope, but insisting that the world must work to end our suffering as Palestinian people.”
The cancellation of Christmas festivities is a extreme blow to the city’s economic system. Tourism accounts for an estimated 70% of Bethlehem’s earnings — nearly all of it from the Christmas season. Salman stated unemployment is hovering round 50% — increased than the 30% unemployment throughout the remainder of the West Financial institution, in response to the Palestinian Finance Ministry.
Nigerian worshippers pray within the Church of the Nativity, historically believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, on Christmas Eve, within the West Financial institution metropolis of Bethlehem, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photograph/Matias Delacroix)
Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the highest Roman Catholic cleric within the Holy Land, famous the shuttered retailers and empty streets and expressed hope that subsequent yr could be higher.
“This has to be the last Christmas that is so sad,” he informed tons of of individuals gathered in Manger Sq., the place usually tens of hundreds would congregate. “I bring you the greetings, the prayers, of our brothers and sisters in Gaza.”
Pizzaballa held a particular pre-Christmas mass in Holy Household Church in Gaza Metropolis on Sunday. “I saw everything destroyed, poverty, disaster, but I also saw life. They don’t give up, so we don’t give up,” he stated.
The variety of guests to the city plunged from a pre-COVID excessive of round 2 million guests per yr in 2019 to fewer than 100,000 guests in 2024, stated Jiries Qumsiyeh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Tourism Ministry.
Bethlehem is a vital heart within the historical past of Christianity, however Christians make up solely a small proportion of the roughly 14 million folks unfold throughout the Holy Land. There are about 182,000 in Israel, 50,000 within the West Financial institution and Jerusalem and 1,300 in Gaza, in response to the U.S. State Division.
Whereas the conflict in Gaza has deterred vacationers and pilgrims alike, it has additionally prompted a surge of violence within the West Financial institution, with greater than 800 Palestinians killed by Israeli hearth and dozens of Israelis killed in assaults.
Because the Oct. 7, 2023, assault that sparked the conflict, entry to and from Bethlehem and different Palestinian cities within the West Financial institution has been troublesome, with lengthy traces of motorists ready to go Israeli navy checkpoints. Restrictions have additionally prevented some 150,000 Palestinians from leaving the territory to work in Israel, inflicting the economic system there to contract by 25%.
Greater than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, in response to well being officers there, whereas some 90% of the territory’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced. Officers say greater than half of the useless are ladies and kids, although they don’t give a breakdown of what number of are civilians and what number of fighters.
Within the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, Hamas-led terrorists killed about 1,200 folks, most of them civilians, and took greater than 250 hostages.
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the US, Canada and the European Union.
Elsewhere, Christmas celebrations have been additionally subdued.
Syrians protest after Christmas tree burned
Scores of Syrian Christians protested Tuesday in Damascus, demanding safety after the burning of a Christmas tree in Hama the day earlier than.
A Syrian Christian man holds up a cross and shouts slogans in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024, throughout a protest march after a Christmas tree was set on hearth in Hamah metropolis on Sunday. (AP Photograph/Hussein Malla)
Movies and pictures shared on social media confirmed the massive, adorned tree burning at a roundabout in Suqalabiyah, a city within the Hama countryside. It stays unclear who was liable for setting the tree on hearth.
In a video that circulated on social media, a consultant of Syria’s new management, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, might be seen visiting the positioning and addressing the neighborhood. He stated: “This act was committed by people who are not Syrian, and they will be punished beyond your expectations.”
Germans mourn after Christmas market assault
German celebrations have been darkened by a automobile assault on a Christmas market on Friday that left 5 folks useless and 200 folks injured.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier rewrote his annual recorded Christmas Day speech to deal with the assault.
He plans to acknowledge that “there is grief, pain, horror and incomprehension over what took place in Magdeburg,” whereas urging Germans to “stand together,” in response to an early copy of the speech.
Initially Revealed: December 24, 2024 at 9:19 AM EST
